Adversaria

Adversaria Synopsis

Edited from Porson's notebooks by two of his Cambridge colleagues, Adversaria was published posthumously in 1812. It includes Porson's prelection (delivered when he was a candidate for the Regius Professorship of Greek) and notes and emendations to his monumental edition of Euripides as well as to editions of other Greek writings. Among his contributions to nineteenth-century classical scholarship was the discovery of a rule relating to the position of words in Greek trimeters which is still known as Porson's law.

His scholarly style, which focused on metre and language rather than interpretation, set the standard for classical textual criticism at Cambridge for several decades. One of Porson's legacies was the design of a Greek typeface based on his handwriting, commissioned from Richard Austin by Cambridge University Press. 'Porson Greek' was widely used in British publications for well over a century.